Stetz: Fire official overlooks alarming paychecks

San Diego fire fighters responded to a fire at a 4th floor apartment shortly after 8 a.m. on Friday, March 19, 2010 at 22nd and Broadway. Though the fire was knocked down, there was a fatality.
— Nelvin C. Cepeda / Union-Tribune

San Diego fire fighters responded to a fire at a 4th floor apartment shortly after 8 a.m. on Friday, March 19, 2010 at 22nd and Broadway. Though the fire was knocked down, there was a fatality.
— Nelvin C. Cepeda / Union-Tribune

It’s terrible that the city has been forced to cut back on public safety services. Firefighters and cops and lifeguards — it’s nice to have them around and close by.

But what hasn’t been cut? Libraries, recreation centers, beach amenities.…

And let’s see some real evidence that the brownout did indeed contribute to the death of Taylor before all this alarmist talk.

Fire officials maintain the department did its job well in this case.

“It was an excellent response time,” said Maurice Luque, spokesman for the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department. “No one wants the brownouts,” he said, because they can affect public safety.

Response times can be delayed. But the city has little choice because of the budget deficit. Other cities have adopted it.

On Monday, a woman died in a Lincoln Park home fire, despite an engine getting there in less than three minutes, Luque said. There was no brownout at the time and the response time was ideal.

“Bad things sometimes happen,” he said.

De Clercq maintains the brownouts are the problem, but he says firefighter pay and pensions didn’t contribute to it.

Employees went several years without a pay raise, he said.

“No other department has given back more,” De Clercq said.

But name a private industry that hasn’t done the same thing or shed workers. De Clercq is speaking as if the department exists in a vacuum.

He maintains that this recent fire is an adequate example of the city’s brownout policy failing.

“There will be other examples. I’ll tell you what, you choose the next one,” De Clercq told me.

Well, when the “next one” does hit, De Clercq should spend a little time examining his paycheck as a city fire captain. He made $154,184 last year in base pay, overtime and something called retro-pay. He also got a $1,350 uniform allowance.

How will his pension be paid for? Higher taxes, or more cuts to city services.